The Clarkl Soup Kitchens (22 page)

Our churchwoman who runs the laundry gave me about a week’s worth of linens, including twenty tablecloths and one hundred luncheon napkins. These are the wash and fold types, with a little synthetic fabric to allow them to go from the dryer to the table without much ironing. In our dining room, we always use pure linen for the evening meal, but I can’t depend on the folks at the castle to handle linen correctly. I will need to carry linens back and forth each week.

Of course, my lady friends did not visit. Two days without the comforts and pleasures of friends!

I found no amusement in that castle at all. I worked even longer each day, what with having to do everything in the kitchen and train these greenhorns, too.

December 15, 2142
– Another frustrating tour of duty at the castle. The helpers did not clean anything while I was gone, even though they served meals on china. I was delivered to the castle exactly on time, loaded down with various ingredients and produce from the farm, only to find the kitchen piled high with used freezer containers and dirty dishes.

I knew I would have to clean before I could cook, but Headquarters wanted breakfast on the table. I showed the helpers, again, how to put the used dishes into the robot that washes, dries, and puts the clean items into the cupboards. It could not be simpler! The robot even turns itself on if it has work to do and nobody is in the kitchen.

Breakfast was two hours late, and I wrote a note, in English, to the Batwigs to say the china had not been cleaned in my absence.

In another unexpected moment, the royal party ordered more of a dish, one that had already exhausted my supply of fresh artichokes. I created a very similar dish with radishes, which grow like weeds on the farm, and flavored it heavily with the anise our Drones are so fond of. There were complaints about this substitute, but the serving plate was clean when it came back to the kitchen.

In fact, these Monarchs seem to be much better eaters than the folks who frequent our dining room. They will eat nearly anything, like the Wolpters, but they eat more per person than any of the other Clarklians.

The two days passed quickly, though. I had so much to do to keep the kitchen clean and the Monarchs fed that I forgot I was lonely and in a pout about the new assignment.

December 29, 2142
– The Castle work is becoming more routine, now. The helpers are still very slow and very unwilling to learn, but the kitchen is cleaner each time I show up.

Our dining room manager suggested I take two or three people from our own kitchen to assist, but that would leave our staff shorthanded, with no decrease in the numbers of diners. Furthermore, I am reluctant to allow the Monarchs to get used to commandeering our resources. We have our directions about preparing meals for the hungry Clarklians, and the payments to the New Christian Congregation are based on the numbers of diners and not on the social status of these diners.

We are in the midst of the pumpkin harvest, and the churchwomen are working nearly around the clock to can and freeze pumpkin pulp. We prepared a pumpkin stew with peas and dumplings, and the regulars liked it very much. I understand that pumpkins will be plentiful for some years to come here and that they seem to love our cool and moist climate.

My lady friends are even more anxious to come to see me in the evenings now that I am the chef at the Castle. I keep telling the ladies the Monarchs live like pigs, but there still is a mystique about the ruling family.

I have not seen any children at the Castle. I can’t imagine where they are hiding, but I suppose there is a secret kindergarten somewhere to keep the young from mixing and mating with the undesirables. 

March 22, 2143
– just over a year to go now. My bank balance looks better every month, especially since I received a bonus for going over to the Castle every week.

I have been making sure my suite at the Castle is very clean. I put on thick kitchen gloves and scour the bathroom every evening. Now, I am convinced the Castle’s inhabitants are snooping around while I am gone. There were clear footprints on the bathroom’s floor, although I had left it nearly spotless.

What can they be interested in? Clean dishes and clean bathrooms are part of our way of life. We live long enough to be very concerned about disease, and cleanliness is our best defense. The Clarklians are so used to their terrible mortality rate that they don’t take elementary precautions.

I’m still attracting more and more American woman. The word that I am working at the Castle is getting around, and two ladies from the single dining room run by the Fundamentalists of Christ called to ask for a meeting. I thought all those people were too godly for romantic assignations. Certainly they were holier than thou during the flight to Clarkl. We’ll see what they want. Maybe I’ll ply them with sherry.

The royals are becoming fussy eaters, though. They can’t compete with the Wolpters for bad humor, but they know what they want. The fact that pumpkin is now out of season means nothing to them, and I’m glad we have a good supply in the freezer. I’ll have to ration it carefully so it lasts for a few more months. That means our friends the Drones will have to settle for more beans and broccoli.

Actually, as long as the vegetables have a sweet sauce, the Drones are very satisfied. We served some corn fritters with a honey glaze yesterday, and the Drones would not leave the dining room. When we made the Universal signal of “that’s all we have,” they grabbed the rest of the cake and went home.

We have lots of pasta now, from an order from my former company. It arrived three days ago, and already we have prepared whole-wheat fettuccini with slices mushrooms and pesto sauce, to very good reviews. We have trouble keeping that pasta dry in this climate, but the churchwomen have set aside a part of the pantry where they run a dehumidifier. We know we have to use it fairly quickly, though.

Not so with the wild rice flour, which appears to be in ample supply in
America
now. A little moisture does not seem to hurt it, but it is also so popular that we run out of it about a month before the next ship comes in.

I have taken that wild rice flour to the Castle, too. The Monarchs like the wild rice pancakes with maple syrup, and they don’t care if they are on the table at every meal. The helpers can’t seem to learn how to make pancakes, though, so those are reserved for the days I am on site.

The head Batwig has suggested I stay three days a week there, but I have been dancing around a decision. I have to run this kitchen here, of course, but the Batwigs don’t seem to realize our hundreds of regulars come before the twelve or fifteen Monarchs who eat at the Castle.

June 6, 2143
– another bonus from the American government, making my bank balance nearly a million dollars, with the insurance money and the accumulated interest. I will have a nice house in
Colorado
or
Utah
in a year and a half.

The Fundamentalist women keep coming, but who knows why. They don’t take the sherry, of course, but they like to smile and sit in my cabin. I’ll get one of them into bed before too long.

I celebrated my hundredth conquest just last month! One hundred different women since I have been on Clarkl. Of course, many of these women have been back for seconds and thirds, but my success amazes me.

The Drones are known for their many sexual partners, too. Maybe it’s something in the water. May I have no more luck than they with producing offspring.

November 14, 2143
– Whoring this month! I signed up for three days per week at the Castle and another year on Clarkl for a bonus of $35,000. That brings my release date to November of 2145.

Actually, I am having a wonderful time here, with all the ladies who call and the helpful churchwomen in the kitchen. I have never had so many easy sexual conquests, and the kitchen help is always friendly and anxious to do good deeds to help our friends the Drones.

I am able to add about $4,000 each month to my bank account, without counting the bonuses. The bank statements are sent via the electronic channels about once a quarter, and I am always pleasantly surprised to see the accumulated interest and the automatic deposits from the government. If I stay until 2150, I probably could live very well in some retirement community for the remainder of my days.

In 2150, I will be forty-five, a very good age to start a second family. However, if I go, instead, to a posh American retirement center, perhaps in
Havana
, I could play golf and screw the many widows until I die.

It is worth a consideration, I think. This job on Clarkl has been very satisfying, and I might be able to continue with my program as a retiree.

If I could abandon those Monarchs, everything would be perfect here. They continue to order me about in my own kitchen and ask me to supervise several very incompetent helpers.

I suspect the Batwigs are the ones in charge, though. Certainly they have the brains to run the country, but everyone looks to the Monarchs for leadership when the weather wrecks the houses and roads and when a harvest is ruined by poor planning. I wish I could slip into a meeting between the Batwigs and the Monarchs to see how they interact.

Meanwhile, our farms are feeding nearly all the people of this planet. We always have plenty of produce, and this month we have been inundated with apples and pears. The churchwomen have been going without days off to can and freeze slices of both fruits.

I have been working almost nonstop on applesauce and a tasty pear and quince marmalade. The churchwomen pare the fruits between the time we close the dining room at night and the time I report in the morning to cook breakfast, and then I start the giant kettles with the fruit slices. I wish we could send some of that marmalade home to
America
to give away to the bishops and the laity who manage our relationship with Clarkl.

That won’t happen, of course, because the spaceships are filled with all the minerals the government needs. The people who are returning are weighted down with so many souvenirs that I can’t believe any of them would take my glass jars.

On the return trips the spaceships are filled with various wheat products, of course. Everything we order comes within six months, so we have standing orders for flour, sugar, and rice. I order my sherry, and the dining room manager orders toiletries to sell in the commissary. I also have a good supply of condoms on each craft, and I often wonder what the bishop thinks about that.

March 2, 2144
– We have twelve dining rooms here, almost in a circle around the capital of Gilsumo, and the Monarchs have a number of castles near the capital, too. Now I have been asked to go to two other castles to train the chefs there. These are Americans, too, from the other dining rooms, and I suppose they have been recruited with the same heavy-handed methods used to ensnare me. 

My grand tour starts next week, and the churchwomen are making lists of what I will need to take. The Slinkers will arrange all the transportation, but they won’t have any spare time to fetch things I may have forgotten.

Of course, the living quarters will be dirty, and I need to get used to cleaning every evening before I can go to bed. The only good thing is that bugs are not common here.

In fact, there are very few animals here other than the Clarklians themselves. We were told not to bring pets with us on the spacecraft because the Clarklians are not used to seeing them. I have seen a few monkeys and a few birds, but they don’t have much more luck than the Drones with finding food in the wild.

April 9, 2144
– The training at the two other castles is finished, and I am worn out. In addition, my shoes are nearly soleless after tramping around on those rough stone floors that are common in the castles.

The chefs are, of course, very anxious to work hard to get everything right, but the helpers are no better than the ones I found in the castle near our dining room.

Things are certainly not right, though, with the delivery of supplies. About half the food coming from
America
is going to the castles. Our orders are always short, and we are getting very low on flour.

I figure there are about twenty of these ugly Monarchs in each of the fifteen castles I know about. That makes about three hundred of the Monarchs in total. By comparison, we have six hundred Drones and what-nots coming to our dining room each day on average. The other dining rooms do a similar business, although our dining room is usually at the top of the statistics each week.

I figure half the food from
America
is being diverted to feed three hundred Monarchs while we are struggling to feed about seven thousand entities with the other half. Something has to change.

We have cut down on pies and cakes, of course. Our broccoli crop is very good and a really fine pumpkin crop is just a week or so away. But, we are taking our frozen assets out of the freezers at a fast rate. So far, nobody has left the dining room without a meal, but the Wolpters, never ones to let any complaint go unheard, are starting to clamor for the sweets.

In two weeks I go on the road again to train three more chefs in three more castles.

June 13, 2144
– Back home in my little cabin now, and continuing with my work at our dining room.